Helpful Score: 11
I finished it in about a day but didn't think it lived up to all the hype I'd heard about it. Overall, just kind of an odd book.
Helpful Score: 9
ehh.. ok for a really really light read. Finished it in a few hours and wasn't changed after the experience. Nothing horrible about it, but it didn't live up to it's reviews in my opinion.
Helpful Score: 7
Eight (and soon to be nine) year old Rose has a peculiar relationship with food. She cannot simply eat food and enjoy it, because she tastes the emotions of the person who prepared the food. When her mother prepares a lemon cake from scratch for her birthday, the sad taste of the cake exposes her young heart and mind to truths about her parents that she is not ready for.
As Rose struggles to live with her odd condition, the rest of her family faces their own challenges as well: her father seems awkward in his parental role, her mother is restless and feels that something is missing from her life though she does not know what, and her elder brother Joseph is brilliant but unable to fit in with the rest of society.
Aimee Bender manages to take a fanciful premise and make it into a believable and emotional story. She immerses you into the surreal world of Rose in a way that does not make the reader question whether or not such a thing is possible; Bender writes so convincingly that you accept that it is as she says. Highly recommended.
As Rose struggles to live with her odd condition, the rest of her family faces their own challenges as well: her father seems awkward in his parental role, her mother is restless and feels that something is missing from her life though she does not know what, and her elder brother Joseph is brilliant but unable to fit in with the rest of society.
Aimee Bender manages to take a fanciful premise and make it into a believable and emotional story. She immerses you into the surreal world of Rose in a way that does not make the reader question whether or not such a thing is possible; Bender writes so convincingly that you accept that it is as she says. Highly recommended.
Emi B. (wantonvolunteer) -
Helpful Score: 6
The cheery pastel cake illustration and the People magazine blurb, "Moving, fanciful, and gorgeously strange" on the cover had me worried this would be smarmy pap or Young Adult Fiction; but I was gladdened to find the story had elements dark and ominous. The presentation light and airy, but upon consumption there is a hint of David Foster Wallace and an aftertaste of Chuck Palahniuk.
Young Rose Edelstein lives in LA with with her tall lawyer father, beautiful hyperactive mom, and scientifically gifted older brother with anti-social tendencies. At the age of nine, Rose discovers she can taste feelings in food - the emotions of the baker and farmer and anyone else involved in the assembly of whatever she eats. Overwhelmed, she seeks out machine-processed junk food. Aimee Bender is wildly inventive, I ate this book up, couldn't wait to see what happened next. Can't say much more about the plot without spoiling.
Young Rose Edelstein lives in LA with with her tall lawyer father, beautiful hyperactive mom, and scientifically gifted older brother with anti-social tendencies. At the age of nine, Rose discovers she can taste feelings in food - the emotions of the baker and farmer and anyone else involved in the assembly of whatever she eats. Overwhelmed, she seeks out machine-processed junk food. Aimee Bender is wildly inventive, I ate this book up, couldn't wait to see what happened next. Can't say much more about the plot without spoiling.
Helpful Score: 6
I had high hopes for this book but like some of the previous reviewers I felt it lost it. Some parts were just too far out for me - namely the brother. I also have a hard time with no actual dialogue. If you enjoy the magical genre I would suggest Sarah Addison Allen.
